The Colts have gotten down to the 53 players who will start the year on the active roster. Here are the players who won’t:
Released:
- DE Genard Avery
- CB Chris Lammons
- WR D.J. Montgomery
- TE Eric Tomlinson
- WR Laquon Treadwell
Waived:
- CB Micah Abraham
- LB Austin Ajiake
- LB Liam Anderson
- QB Jason Bean
- DE Levi Bell
- S Marcel Dabo
- RB Demetric Felton
- G Arlington Hambright
- RB Evan Hull
- DT Eric Johnson
- DT Jonah Laulu
- DE Titus Leo
- TE Jordan Murray
- C Mike Panasiuk
- RB Zavier Scott
- CB Jaylin Simpson
- CB Ameer Speed
- S Michael Tutsie
- T Jake Witt
- LB Craig Young
Placed on IR:
- WR Juwann Winfree
- TE Jelani Woods
Placed on IR (designated for return):
- DE Samson Ebukam
- LB Cameron McGrone
The Colts made a number of tough decisions to close our the initial active roster. Aside from Montgomery, every other veteran the team released today has some form of starting experience under their belt. A youth movement in the defensive ends room kept Avery out of the mix, and Tomlinson wasn’t able to take advantage of Woods missing the who year on injured reserve.
Even more surprising perhaps was Indianapolis cutting ties with three drafted rookies after only four months. Fifth-round Auburn defensive back Simpson, sixth-round Marshall cornerback Abraham, and seventh-round Oklahoma defensive tackle Laulu all failed to make the 53-man roster, essentially marking those draft picks as wasted. If some late-round players end up breaking out into true contributors, the Colts are going to kick themselves for missing on those three selections.
On the other side of that, Indianapolis uncovered a gem in undrafted Marshall guard Dalton Tucker. Tucker made the roster and is one of only four interior offensive linemen backing up the starting three.
The QB room is a mess. Richardson is an unknown that performed poorly against the Bengals second unit (failing in 5 of 6 drives). Flacco is not there to be a tutor to Richardson, and has made that clear. Somehow Ehlinger has a spot, and though a glue guy, doesn’t have regular season NFL talent…
I don’t think it was all that surprising about cutting ties with some of their Day 3 picks. It has been mentioned dozens of times (including on this website) that this last draft was not very deep. Only 58 underclassman declared for the draft due to extra eligibility because of the pandemic as well as the money incentive from NIL deals. So the type of player selected on Day 3 this last draft was similar to UDFA’s from prior years. So are you saying the Colts should have loaded up on UDFA quality players? And sure, some of these players will carve out a nice career just like there are always UDFA players that find a way to make it in the league. Further, according to the local beat reporters, the Colts would like to sign these players back to their practice squad, assuming they clear waivers.